Noblesse Oblige
by Mizu-Tenshi
Summary: Neither of them really knew what they were doing, even if they thought they did. Neither of them thought they were in love, even if they were. Or could have been. HaruhikoxHiroki


I know, isn't this just the weirdest pairing? Set in the past. Haruhiko and Hiroki are approximately eighteen and twenty respectively. Also includes mentions of one-sided HirokixAkihiko and AkihikoxTakahiro.

* * *

**Noblesse Oblige**

XX

Hiroki's first glimpse of the elusive Usami Haruhiko had been as a vague silhouette staring down at them from a window as they ran towards the manor house in order to get out of the rain. At that time, he had no idea that Akihiko had a brother - he never mentioned it and Hiroki had never seen aforementioned older brother until that day - but that momentary glimpse was enough to put him under the impression that this person was not to be approached under any circumstance.

"What the heck? Hey, Akihiko, who's that weird guy in the window?" he had asked in his youthful ignorance.

Akihiko gave a cursory glance upwards, letting his shirt soak for another fifth of a second before proceeding inside. "Oh. That's my brother," he said absently, though it was enough to be considered curt.

Hiroki reiterated; Under. Any. Circumstance.

XX

Seven years since that brief meeting - if it indeed could be called a meeting at all - and Hiroki hardly saw Usami Haruhiko after that. Sometimes, in Akihiko's room, he would hear footsteps and Tanaka welcoming the older brother home, notice the Usami car pass him by on his way to kendo, or catch furtive glances of Haruhiko's face on his way home.

Generally, however, Usami Haruhiko remained as much a stranger to him as he was to Haruhiko. Hiroki doubted he even knew his name, and probably referred to him - if he was ever remembered enough to be referred to - as 'that friend of Akihiko.'

This was not a problem. What little he saw of Haruhiko generally gave him the creeps anyway and he noticed that there was always an air of awkwardness whenever the boy's name was mentioned in Akihiko's presence. Deciding that it would be better to stick to his own business anyway, Hiroki continued his daily routine of school, kendo and wistfully watching Akihiko gradually fall in love with someone who was _not _him.

It was not until he reached eighteen that Hiroki finally exchanged words with the mysterious older brother.

It happened quite by accident, neither had intended to meet the other, but Akihiko was taking his sweet time getting dressed and Hiroki was left alone in the lounge to wait for him.

Well, alone was not quite accurate. Haruhiko was there too, waiting for the driver to bring the car round. Hiroki mentally added two years to his age and decided that Haruhiko must be in university by now.

They sat in complete silence for a good five minutes and thirty three seconds. Hiroki often let his eyes shift over Haruhiko's face, trying to catch a good glimpse of his face without being caught. It was purely bad luck that, on his third attempt, Haruhiko chose that moment to look at him as well.

An air of awkwardness pervaded over them. Hiroki flushed with embarrassment and quickly stared at the floor. Haruhiko did not look a thing like his younger brother anyway.

"…Sorry, who are you again?"

Haruhiko's voice struck him as odd the first time he heard it. He did not know why he expected him to sound like Akihiko - did genetics really work that way? - but the first words he heard uttered from that mouth were delivered so bluntly that Hiroki was just a little taken aback.

"Uh - I…I'm just a friend of Akihiko," he replied, somewhat unbalanced.

"…I see," Haruhiko turned away and said nothing more.

After another three minutes of silence, Hiroki crumbled under pressure and ended up saying; "Hiroki. Um, my name's Kamijou Hiroki. You're Akihiko's older brother, right? Usami Haruhiko?"

Haruhiko looked completely uninterested. The fact that Hiroki was growing redder and redder with embarrassment was seemingly unregistered by him.

"That's correct," he answered in a similar deadpan manner and once again turned his attention to the far wall.

Hiroki was slightly offended that the wall made a better conversation partner than he did, not that he had been looking to strike up a conversation with Usami Haruhiko anyway. He quietly sat and smouldered upon his reflections. What the hell was with that man anyway?

"You don't like Akihiko much, do you?" he muttered out of spite.

"You can tell?" Haruhiko looked at him without the least bit of interest.

Hiroki frowned at the floor. "Because it's always awkward whenever someone mentions your name to him," he explained.

"But _you_ like him, right?" Haruhiko's unnerving perceptiveness cause Hiroki to blush fiercely.

"I - I don't see why you don't like Akihiko so much! I mean, he's an idiot sometimes and he absolutely no common sense but - "

"I hate him," Haruhiko announced.

Hiroki looked as though he had been personally offended. "What the hell's up with that? Listen to what people are saying! I - "

He would have continued had Akihiko not chosen that moment to enter the lounge, adjusting the collar of his uniform - a uniform which, Hiroki might add, looked very good on Akihiko. If he did any more blushing that day he thought he might burst a blood vessel.

One glance at his brother was all he needed for Akihiko's demeanour to grow sour. With practiced forcefulness, he grabbed Hiroki's hand, pulling away from the snare that was his older brother.

Unfortunately, Hiroki considered himself fool enough to walk into spider webs on his own accord.

XX

From that moment on, Hiroki seemed to meet Haruhiko more often. These meetings were always accidental; he could tell that neither he nor Haruhiko had predetermined them, and yet they occurred with such startling frequency that Hiroki was wondering if Fate was giving him a proverbial nudge in the wrong direction. Passing each other in the street, meeting on the stairs, leaving the Usami household at the same time; they seemed destined to bump into each other, much to Hiroki's annoyance.

"…Haruhiko," Hiroki muttered on one such chance meeting, dropping the usual honorific not out of closeness but rather contempt for the man.

"Friend of Akihiko," Haruhiko regarded him with equal coldness.

"It's Kamijou! Kamijou Hiroki! How many times do I have to tell you that?" Hiroki burst out angrily.

"Hiroki then."

"Don't use my first name!" he shuddered.

Haruhiko adjusted his glasses. "Why not? Akihiko calls you that, doesn't he?"

"Akihiko's different! He's - " he vaguely summoned the word 'special' but blushed and shook it off. "Anyway, Akihiko's my friend so it's okay!"

"So I can only call you that if we're friends?" Haruhiko concluded. "Then let's be friends, Hiroki."

Hiroki stepped back, amazed by the level of Haruhiko's bluntness. "Wh - Who would want to be friends with a jerk like you?" he cried as soon as he had recovered. "B - Besides, you don't really like me at all!"

"Ah, that's because Akihiko likes you. I always hate the things Akihiko likes," Haruhiko said as if he were explaining a simple equation.

Hiroki's cheeks burned at the thought of Akihito 'liking' him, but quickly cooled as he remembered one Takahashi Takahiro. "Akihiko doesn't like me," he muttered. "Akihiko likes air-headed space cases with glasses!"

"…Ah," Haruhiko sighed knowingly.

"Don't say 'ah' as if you understand anything, you jerk!" Hiroki lashed at him.

"Ah."

"I said - "

He had no time to repeat what he had said, not with Haruhiko pressing his mouth against his own. Without breaking the kiss, Hiroki was pulled into a nearby room, the door slamming shut after them. Hands that blindly scrambled over his chest finally found his collar and pulled off Hiroki's shirt.

Hiroki believed 'what the hell' was the first thought that passed through his mind. Or maybe he was too shocked too think. He knew Usamis were blunt but Haruhiko put a whole new spin on family bluntness.

"Don't!" he snapped, freeing himself from the kiss with an angry gasp.

"Why not?" Haruhiko's breath warmed his neck.

Hiroki flushed. Why the hell would he want to? Just what had brought about this unexpected kiss? "…Don't touch me if - if you don't love me," he muttered weakly.

For once, he happened to say something that seemed to amuse Haruhiko. The man's lips twitched with a suppressed smirk. "…Hypocrite."

Yes, Hiroki silently agreed, thinking of all those one-night stands. He let other people touch him, why not Haruhiko's brother? It was as close as he was going to get, right?

XX

He did not know when it really started. He did not know why he let it happen. Hiroki was sure that some part of him was screaming at him for his stupidity. It was a bad idea. Why could he not have realised that?

As he stared up, slightly dazed, at the cream-coloured ceiling he tried to block out the sound of Haruhiko leaving love bites on his neck. His body was hot, covered in sweat and God knew what. Hiroki closed his eyes in surrender, the sound of his sigh seemingly alerting Haruhiko - who had lost himself in whatever he was doing - of his presence,.

"Are you lonely?" Hiroki wandered aloud, speaking more to himself than Haruhiko. "You're lonely aren't you, Haruhiko? Pathetic jerk." The weight of the insult lost in its quietness.

"Then…what about you?" Haruhiko murmured, moving down to Hiroki's collarbone.

"I.." he winced. "I'm okay. Being close enough is okay. Even if - Ah! H - Haruhiko!" Hiroki had to stop there when Haruhiko decided that he was ready for round two.

"I hate him."

Hiroki managed to lift his head high enough to glance at Haruhiko. He did not want to discuss Akihiko with this man, not with this jerk, and when they were doing _this _of all things? It felt like betrayal.

"Don't talk about someone else when you're fucking _me_, jerk! Even if you don't love me, have the decency to keep your mouth shut!" he snapped, forgetting that he had been the first to allude to Akihiko anyway.

Haruhiko simply smirked. "But don't you want to know? The extent of my hate for him is probably as deep as your love."

He hated this. Sneaking around behind Akihiko back, secretly coming for sex, it was the worst, the complete worst. Two people taking out their loneliness on each other? Hiroki wanted to laugh. It was pathetic.

Yet, after each of their secret trysts, Hiroki was always left dazed enough to forget his worries, his eyes fixated upon the blazing light bulb above the bed until he felt he would go blind.

XX

"Why do you like him?" Haruhiko wandered, pressing his back against Hiroki's so they could sit without having to look at each other. "He's a completely useless human being. There's no reason for someone like you to like him."

It was odd, if not a complete rarity for Haruhiko to voice his thoughts. Hiroki pretended to flick though the book he was meant to be reading in an attempt to conceal is surprise.

"Well, why do _you_ hate him so much?" he asked.

"That idiot is completely in love with someone else," Haruhiko said, ignoring Hiroki's question.

Hiroki curled his toes in front of the fireplace. Even though it was spring, it was hardly warm and Haruhiko's back was not exactly the best heater one could wish for, not to mention that it was rather hard. Akihiko was staying behind for club activities, but even so Hiroki felt like a trespasser in the Usami house. He would have also stayed behind after school but Takahiro was there and he hated feeling as if he was just in the way.

Takahashi Takahiro. Akihiko had weird tastes if he could fall for an air-head like that. Hiroki sighed and glanced behind him at Haruhiko, who had returned to scribbling notes in his lecture pad.

"I know about Akihiko's crush," he replied at length.

The scribbling stopped. "So then why?"

Hiroki blushed and began rapidly leafing through the borrowed book. "...I'll tell you in fifty years."

XX

"…I really hate you."

Hiroki's sigh was muffled by the pillow in which he had decided to bury his face. With a thin sheet wrapped around his waist, his naked torso burned even in the coldness of winter.

"So you always tell me," Haruhiko replied laconically, throwing himself around on the bed so that his back was facing the wall.

Hiroki drew his legs closer towards himself, hoping to be wrapped up in the bed sheets and disappear in a sea of whiteness; a vast ocean of nothing where he could forget all his pleasures and pains and the guilty feeling of wretchedness that always welled up after his trysts with Haruhiko.

"I'm serious. I hate you."

"I know."

"I'll hate you forever and ever until the day I die!" he moaned vehemently into his horribly abused pillow. "I'll never forgive you!"

Haruhiko's shifting body unsettled the mattress. Not bothering to cover his nakedness, he slipped out of bed and began to gather up his clothes.

"You make it sound as if I raped you or something. Even though you were the one begging - "

The full force of a carefully aimed pillow hit his back with a low '_whump_'

"You -You fucking jerk!" an indignant and somewhat teary-eyed Hiroki grabbed a second pillow and threw it at with all his might, hitting Haruhiko squarely in the face.

Hiroki swore to himself that this would be the last, the absolute last time he would play fuck bunny with Haruhiko, knowing full well that by next week at the latest he would secretly stop by without Akihiko's knowing and try to find the comfort he knew would be missing in Haruhiko's arms.

XX

"Don't you think it's a little stupid?" Haruhiko asked, a little too nonchalantly for Hiroki's liking as, once again, they secretly met in his bedroom whilst Akihiko was away.

"What is?" Hiroki snapped, putting down the book he was reading with force.

"You're never going to tell him, are you? So you're just going to watch and pine from afar? That's really stupid."

Hiroki flushed with anger. "Why don't you shut up? If you - "

"I don't see why someone like him deserves such constancy," Haruhiko continued, ignoring the bite of Hiroki's scowl.

Hiroki sighed, feeling the anger wash out of his as suddenly as it had come. He did not know why, but lately it was much harder to be angry with Haruhiko, maybe because the man never seemed to realise when he was actually angry with him.

"He's much better than an insensitive jerk like you," he muttered.

For a moment, he thought Haruhiko had flinched but that expression passed so quickly that it was hard to say if it was simply his imagination or not. Haruhiko sat besides Hiroki on the bed, his body turned away from him as if they dreaded to touch one another yet could not bear being too far apart.

"I fail to see what is so great about a spoilt brat like that," he said, utterly deadpan.

"Because you're biased."

"So are you."

Hiroki stubbornly turned his gaze to the white sheets around him.

"Because he's Akihiko, I guess," he tried explain, though he was aware how feeble it sounded.

"Is that it?" Haruhiko asked, thoroughly unimpressed.

Hiroki shrugged half-heartedly, beginning to feel rather pensive.

"Don't bother chasing him," he said, delivering the cold, blunt facts of life. "Even if you chase after him, you'll never catch him. There are plenty of other perfectly good people out there for you to choose from."

Hiroki frowned. It was easy for someone like Haruhiko to say, someone like him who was not in love and who probably had never loved anyone in his whole life. He bet Haruhiko had it just fine. He should probably warn the other man to never fall in love with anyone, not unless he wanted to become the same useless mess that he was.

"Besides," Hiroki continued aloud, hoping to leave the painful subject of Akihiko. He came here to forget, not to share his embarrassing misery, "Haruhiko's not the type to fall in love. I can't imagine you being in a romantic relationship with anyone! It's impossible!" he laughed.

Perhaps it was just his imagination but Haruhiko seemed to stiffen at that. "Maybe you're right," he replied, more terse than usual.

Alarm bells rang in Hiroki's head, warning him of his insensitiveness. However, at that moment, he was too anxious to move away from the topic of Akihiko that he recklessly plunged on. "I think a sex buddy rather than a lover suits you more. Never fall in love! It'll be the death of you!"

For a long time, Haruhiko said nothing. He seemed to be contemplating Hiroki's half-joking words with more earnestness than they credited. At length, he finally replied; "If that's how you feel why not fall out of love? Or fall in love with someone who will definitely reciprocate?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Hiroki snorted but then, growing pensive, he turned his back to Haruhiko and sighed. "It...it's not that easy. If...if it's not Akihiko it's no good."

Haruhiko was rather taken aback at this, so taken aback that, in fact, he allowed himself a short laugh. Leaning his head back, he stared at the ceiling, at the electric bulb blazing above him, bright enough to burn into the back of his retina. He could feel himself smiling though the humour of his situation was lost on him.

"I know. Akihiko always gets everything, doesn't he?"

* * *

If Haruhiko and Hiroki ended up together what would have become of poor Nowaki? Threesome? (Is always looking for excuses to make threesomes.) Ending went through some major changes. At first, Akihiko was going to walk in on them but I thought that might be a bit crass. I'm fairly happy with this ending. Oh, Hiroki, you're so unintentionally cruel!


End file.
